PRINCESS CRUISE LINES, LTD., MAGSAYSAY MARITIME CORPORATION AND/OR MARLON RONO, PETITIONERS, VS. NORA L. JINTALAN AND NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS COMMISSION (SIXTH DIVISION), RESPO…

Princess Cruise Lines versus Jintalan

The Case

This is a petition for certiorari under Rule 65 brought by Princess Cruise Lines, its local manning agency Magsaysay Maritime Corporation, and Marlon Rono against the seafarer Nora Jintalan and the National Labor Relations Commission. The petitioners ask the Supreme Court to set aside the Commission's affirmance of an award of total and permanent disability benefits, moral damages being no longer in issue, and attorney's fees. The case matters because it settles who decides a seafarer's disability, how much weight that finding carries before the labor tribunals, and what happens when the seafarer's own physician disagrees.

Procedural History

Jintalan filed a complaint before the Labor Arbiter for total and permanent disability compensation, medical expenses, moral and exemplary damages, and attorney's fees. The Labor Arbiter ruled in her favor, ordering the petitioners jointly and severally liable for sixty thousand United States dollars in disability benefits plus ten percent attorney's fees. The petitioners appealed to the National Labor Relations Commission, which dismissed the appeal and affirmed the Labor Arbiter in a decision dated February 7, 2012. Their motion for reconsideration was denied in a resolution dated March 14, 2012. The petitioners then came to the Supreme Court by petition for certiorari under Rule 65, imputing grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction. Both sides filed their memoranda, and the Court decided the petition on its merits.

Facts

On behalf of Princess Cruise Lines, Magsaysay Maritime Corporation hired Jintalan as a stateroom stewardess on the vessel Diamond Princess under a ten-month contract beginning March 8, 2010, at a monthly salary of five hundred United States dollars. She was no novice. Before this hiring she had completed fifteen contracts of employment as stateroom stewardess on vessels owned by Princess Cruise Lines, spanning the period from June 3, 1994 to June 5, 2010.

On June 4, 2010, while on board, she experienced difficulty in breathing after an altercation with her roommate. Co-workers brought her to the ship's medical center, where she was diagnosed with acute bronchospasm and panic attack, and later referred to a clinic in Vancouver, Canada, where she was found to have status asthmaticus. She was repatriated to the Philippines on June 5, 2010. On June 16, 2010, the company-designated doctor examined her and diagnosed bronchial asthma. She underwent a series of tests, including thyroid function, pulmonary function, electrocardiogram, echocardiogram, chest x-ray, and psychological tests, all of which showed normal findings. On November 4, 2010, the company-designated physician declared her fit for work, and on the same day she signed a Certificate of Fitness for Work.

She continued to suffer shortness of breath and chest pains. On her own initiative she consulted Doctor Jose Yulde at the Philippine Heart Center, who found chronic obstructive lung disease secondary to prolonged exposure to the disinfectant Oasis for about fifteen years, and opined that she was physically disabled to continue as a cabin stewardess. On February 8, 2011, she filed her complaint. Her doctor's medical certificates were issued only on April 19, 2011 and May 24, 2011. In her rejoinder she prayed that, given the contrasting assessments, the matter be referred to a third doctor, and the petitioners made no manifestation on that prayer.

Issues

• Whether or not the National Labor Relations Commission committed grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction in awarding total and permanent disability compensation despite the company-designated physician's declaration of fitness for work.
• Whether or not the National Labor Relations Commission committed grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction in holding the petitioners liable for attorney's fees equivalent to ten percent of the judgment award.

Applicable Provisions

The Court applies Section 20-B of the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration Standard Employment Contract, as summarized in its own restatement of the procedure:

Section 20-B of the POEA-SEC evidently shows that it is the company-designated physician who primarily assesses the degree of the seafarer's disability.

This fixes the starting point of the analysis: the company doctor assesses first, but the assessment is not the last word.

The same provision, as restated by the Court, governs the timelines:

The company-designated physician should, however, make the declaration or determination within 120 days, otherwise, the law considers the seafarer's disability as total and permanent and the latter shall be entitled to disability benefits.

This measures whether the fit-to-work declaration was timely, and here it was issued within the extended period.

And on the seafarer's right to a second opinion, the Court restates the rule:

In case of disagreement between the findings of the company-designated physician and the seafarer's appointed physician, the parties shall jointly agree to refer the matter to a third doctor whose findings shall be final and binding on both.

This is the provision that defines whose finding binds the parties, and it is the hinge on which the entire ruling turns.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court denied the petition. It held that there is nothing in the procedure it had outlined to suggest that the finding of the company doctor is binding on the Labor Arbiter, the National Labor Relations Commission, or the Court. Only the finding of a third doctor chosen by the parties is final and binding on them. Thus, even if the seafarer did not contest the company doctor's findings, she may still do so before the Labor Arbiter, the Commission, and the Court, and may present evidence to refute them even on appeal, because technical rules are not binding in labor cases. It was therefore within the authority and discretion of the Labor Arbiter and the Commission to admit her doctor's medical certificates and to rule on the company doctor's assessment in light of them.

The Court found no grave abuse of discretion in refusing to give credence and probative weight to the company doctor's findings. Jintalan had served continuously for fifteen years, constantly exposed to a harmful disinfectant. Given her working conditions, it was difficult to believe that she contracted a simple case of asthma and remained fit for work. Her continuing shortness of breath and chest pains belied that finding and were more consistent with chronic obstructive lung disease. That her doctor's finding came six months later did not detract from its credibility, since medical studies show that chronic obstructive lung disease develops over a long period and could not have arisen within six months after she signed off. The Certificate of Fitness for Work she signed had no probative value; it was strange that she should be a signatory at all, since she lacked the competence to ascertain her fitness, and the document is in the nature of a quitclaim, which the law frowns upon because employees are vulnerable to employer pressure.

On the measure of disability, the Court adopted the rule that disability is not to be understood in its medical significance but in terms of loss of earning capacity:

Disability should not be understood more on its medical significance but on the loss of earning capacity. Permanent total disability means disablement of an employee to earn wages in the same kind of work, or work of similar nature that he was trained or accustomed to perform, or any kind of work which a person of his mentality and attainment could do. It does not mean helplessness.

Having lost her ability to continue as a seafarer and being unemployable as such, she was entitled to total and permanent disability benefits. On the second issue, the Court sustained the award of attorney's fees at ten percent of the total money claims, the petition having raised no separate ground to disturb it.

Doctrine

First, it is the company-designated physician who primarily assesses the seafarer's disability, and the declaration or determination must be made within one hundred twenty days, extendible to not more than two hundred forty days should further treatment be required. Second, the seafarer is not irretrievably bound by that assessment; she may seek a second opinion, and only the finding of a third doctor jointly chosen by the parties is final and binding. Third, absent a third-doctor referral, the labor tribunals and the Court may weigh the competing medical findings, and the company doctor's assessment does not bind them. Fourth, a certificate of fitness for work signed by the seafarer is in the nature of a quitclaim, is frowned upon, and has no probative value. Fifth, disability is measured by loss of earning capacity, not by medical significance, and does not mean helplessness.

Disposition

The petition was dismissed and the decision and resolution of the National Labor Relations Commission were affirmed, so Jintalan prevailed and retained her award of sixty thousand United States dollars in total and permanent disability benefits plus ten percent attorney's fees.

Remember This

Memorize this line: only the third doctor's finding is final and binding, so the company doctor's fit-to-work declaration never binds the Labor Arbiter, the Commission, or the Court. Examiners use this case on the company-designated physician rule, the one hundred twenty to two hundred forty day periods, the weight of a seafarer's certificate of fitness as a quitclaim, and the earning-capacity test for permanent total disability.